Mechanical performance of magnet insulation materials fabricated by the 'Insulate-Wind-and-React' technique

Superconducting magnet coils are usually fabricated according to the 'Wind-React-Insulate-and-Transfer' technique. However, the alternative 'Insulate-Wind-and-React' technique could simplify the coil manufacturing process considerably. An insulation system designed for this process has been investigated. It consists of a R-glass fiber reinforcement heat treated at 650 oC and impregnated afterwards with epoxy. For the mechanical material characterization, tensile, short-beam shear (SBS) and tension-tension fatigue tests were employed at 77 K. In addition, half of the SBS samples were reactor irradiated to a neutron fluence of 1 x 1022 m-2 (E > 0.1 MeV) to check for radiation induced material degradation